August 7, 2018
For the third year, let’s celebrate August (which is back-to-school time here in the southern half of the U.S.) with some #AuthresAugust! For previous posts related to using authentic resources in the classroom, including previous #AuthresAugust picks, check out my authres tag. Definitely take a look at my post from last August called “Authentic or […]
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August 2, 2018
In the post-vocabulary list era, we know that vocabulary presented repeatedly in context is the higher road. In that light, what are some practices teachers have found to help learners acquire rich vocabulary without developing, assigning, and drilling long lists of words? I’ll present here one of mine. But first… Let me give a bit […]
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August 1, 2018
It’s been a life-boosting 10 months. As a rule, I can highly recommend this, whatever you want to call it – a hiatus, a sabbatical, a step back. If any area of your professional life is proving detrimental to your personal relationships and mental well-being, it’s time to: pare down that area to what you barely […]
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May 29, 2018
Is it the year of the podcast? Back when I was asking for your help in identifying the best new blogs for 2018, Maris thought so. I certainly see a lot more buzz around about them- a whole lot more than I did in 2014. Spoiler alert: 2014 was not the year of the podcast. More […]
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May 25, 2018
There is a new song on my radio, and we’re playing it on Alexa about twelve times a day lately. It’s provocatively called “Dream Small.” It’s a Christian song, so the overall message will not resonate with some of you, but I want to extrapolate, if I may, and say something that’s been on my […]
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May 8, 2018
My class has an infection right now, and it’s called translation. It’s no secret I am not a huge fan of translation as the go-to method of checking comprehension, though I’ve moderated my stance on this over the years (especially for interpretive assessments), and lately I’m remembering why. I’ve based four out of the last […]
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April 23, 2018
Since I developed a student handout with the highest-frequency Spanish words organized by type and including translation and rank, and recently posted about how we put our most helpful high-frequency words and phrases on our shower-curtain word walls, it stands to reason that I’m a big fan of high-frequency words. Well, I am and I’m […]
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April 17, 2018
Not long ago, I fortuitously caught a tweet or headline notification from a newspaper, maybe the New York Times. It was a review of a new children’s book. The author’s name was Junot Díaz, and the name didn’t strike me right away as familiar. Soon I realized it was the author of a recent Pulitzer novel, The […]
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March 23, 2018
What do you do when you’re entering a new classroom, but this time, you have to leave it the way you found it, every single week? Well, you ask #langchat, of course. Two and a half years ago I took to Twitter to get ideas from my amazing #langchat PLN could come up. I was re-entering the […]
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March 13, 2018
Do you remember Mad Libs? As I was planning my semester around our novel Robo en la noche and our unit’s Driving Question: What can we create and share to show an interesting itinerary for a five-day trip in Costa Rica? it occurred to me that Mad Libs would be a fun way to explore a […]
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February 20, 2018
I saw a tweet by a professor with 41,000 followers. I listened to a podcast by a teacher who wrote a book, and has a sponsor, and knows everybody. I read a book by a consultant who knows I could do better if I could just do it right, though he left the classroom to be a […]
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February 15, 2018
Last fall, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, together with the National Council of State Supervisors for Languages, released a newly designed, re-imagined set of Can-Do statements. Have you taken a look yet? Maybe not, it’s okay. You’re already trying to use all the good pedagogy tips everyone’s been telling you about to plan […]
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